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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 7, 2026

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You were asked: What do you think Zohran meant by the IDF laced the boot on your neck?

I was not asked that, that was the followup question I asked.

My statement was in response to a comment saying "The sitting mayor of New York City openly claims that the NYPD have only committed police brutality because they were trained to by the IDF"

Mamdani's laced statement obviously means there is influence in some manner. That's the entire point of the metaphor. This is also verifiably true to at least some degree, as there is an Israeli/NYPD training partnership, and unless American police are being scammed, presumably the training has some sort of influence on them.

So given his analogy doesn't work for an "only" interpretation and that the taken in good faith version of his response is literally proven true, Mamdani's statements are not evidence of him holding a conspiracy theory.

Mamdani's laced statement obviously means there is influence in some manner.

No, as I have already addressed in my lengthy previous response, there is only one factor offered in the 'laced' metaphor, and it's the IDF lacing.
Not Hollywood movies, not racist stereotypes, not cowboy trainers at the academy, not toxic masculinity... The only factor specified in the metaphor is the IDF.

Mamdani's statements are not evidence of him holding a conspiracy theory.

Why do you think Mamdani goes out of his way to single out the IDF when talking about police brutality in his city? Even 'the boot on your neck' part of is is hyperbolic. The large majority of police interactions have no boot on a neck, and there is a second conspiracy theory here, held by paranoid schizophrenes, libertarians and other fringe people, which is that normal policing is some kind of tyrannical action.
Normal people who are not part of the extreme progressive tribe think that it is appropriate to put away some dangerous people, and to have government workers in charge of applying the necessary violence to that end.

Such language was last appropriate when Biden-era government people were shutting down businesses and shutting down the bank account of Canadian protesters over some grandma coughing in China.